YOUNGSTOWN — The Mahoning and Shenango valleys are only on the western front of the Frankenstorm called Hurricane Sandy that’s drenching the Eastern seaboard this week.

But on Monday, Youngstown was the eye of a superstorm of a political sort as former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden rallied in Youngstown for four more years of Democratic leadership by Barack Obama. The president was in Washington monitoring Hurricane Sandy and was replaced at the rally by Biden.

“Ohio is the center of the universe right now,” Mahoning County Democratic Party Chairman David Betras said from the floor of the Covelli Center, minutes before doors opened for Monday’s rally. “And the Mahoning Valley plays a role in who wins Ohio.”

Betras has scored national media attention for his commitment to getting out the vote by encouraging early voting, and his goal was for 65 percent of the Mahoning Valley vote to go for Obama-Biden, he said.

Stalwarts who stood in a steady rain for hours filed in to receive the blue-and-white “Forward” signs distributed by the Obama team and listen to soul songs like Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” along with a selection of Obama sound bites from his 2008 campaign.

They were riled up by Colleen Lowry, who serves as Obama’s field director for the Mahoning Valley.

“Voting early is the fastest and easiest way to prove you’ve got Obama’s back,” Lowry said.

She and Congressman Tim Ryan were opening acts for the “rock stars” people came out for.

Clinton and Biden both delivered impassioned speeches arguing for another term for Obama.

“It’s great to be back in Youngstown,” Clinton said in a semi-hoarse voice that strengthened as his speech went on.

Clinton played to the crowd by talking up the valley’s manufacturing might and he emphasized he had nothing to gain by supporting Obama.

He does because he agrees with Obama’s policies on health care, education and the economy, Clinton said.

The Republican argument that “we left him in a terrible mess and in four years he didn’t fix it,” doesn’t hold water, Clinton said.

The argument of the GOP ticket of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is “put us back in and we’ll do what we did before on steroids,” Clinton said.

That won’t work, Clinton said.

“Do you believe our country works best when we’re all in this together or when you’re on your own,” Clinton said.

He argued for Obama’s policies, which are based on “evidence” not “extremist idealism,” and a budget based on “arithmetic not illusion,” Clinton said.

“The president stopped a slide into a depression,” he said.

He touted Obama’s accomplishments while offering steady barbs at the GOP ticket.

Romney “ties himself in more knots than a Boy Scout does in a knot-tying contest,” Clinton said.

He called the Romney-Ryan plan for drastic budget cuts coupled with tax cuts as a “dead dang loser.”

“I’m for President Obama because his budget adds up,” Clinton said.

The former president’s popularity in Youngstown was evident in the applause he received, which was almost eclipsed by the ovation garnered by Biden, whom Clinton called “Obama’s ambassador to middle class America.”

“Folks, he (Obama) asked me to send his regrets,” Biden said, noting the president was “doing what the president should be doing.”

Biden decried the ever-changing stances Romney and Ryan have taken on issues, noting that during the final debate, which focused on foreign policy, “I wasn’t sure whether Gov. Romney was going to endorse or debate President Obama.”

“With these guys it always depends. It always depends,” Biden said.

The change of heart Romney made known in the debate about his stance on issues like the end date for the war in Afghanistan, how to deal with the unrest in Syria and other foreign policy problems that seemingly echoed similar policies expressed by Obama show he “may have had an epiphany,” Biden said.

But Biden’s grandfather often said, “Joey, beware of the converted,” Biden joked.

Despite the striking similarities voiced during that debate, Biden said the differences between the tickets are “striking.”

He called the GOP ticket out on its stances against the Affordable Health Care Act, called “Obamacare” by the Republicans, which Romney vows to repeal if elected.

“They still think insurance companies should be able to charge women more for a policy,” Biden said, adding that provisions that allow for that are set to end under the health care law, along with a provision that considers pregnancy to be a “pre-existing condition,” according to Biden.

“It sounds like I’m making this stuff up,” he said.

Obama and Biden “believe with every fiber of our being” in equality for women and men.

“That our wives and daughters have every single right as our sons,” he said.

When asked about his stance on such rights for women, Romney responded with the muff about “binders full of women” that went viral on the Web, Biden said.

“His plans aren’t sketchy, they’re Etch-A-Sketchy,” Biden said. “These guys are running away from their own shadows, but you can’t outrun your shadow.”